gear

The Goods: Gear for an Outdoor Lifestyle

The Goods: Gear for an Outdoor Lifestyle

Here at SUP magazine we’re outdoor people. We’re ocean people, we’re river people and we’re mountain people. And we accumulate the gear to live all those lives accordingly. In that vein, we’re launching “Gear’s Good”, to bring you the gear that’s not necessarily made for SUP, but fits right in with the outdoor lifestyle. —WT

Gibbon Slacklines Jibline

$100, Gibbonslacklines.com
We thought slacklining looked ridiculous, too. But a friend set one up between two ponderosa pines over a holiday weekend and we couldn’t help ourselves. A couple hours, and maybe a beer or three later, and we’d figured out how to walk on the thing, albeit still a bit unstable, and we had a stupid amount of fun doing it. The next morning the soreness stretched from the lats to the obliques and our legs were noodly. It was the perfect cross-training SUP workout, hitting many of the same stabilizing muscle groups in both the core and the legs. The Gibbon Jibline makes setup and takedown snappy with their two-piece system, meaning you can head down to your local park and be slacking—er, we mean training—within minutes. It might not feel like you’re working hard but just wait until the morning.

Gerber Gator Combo Axe II

$50, Gerbergear.com
A person with an axe is just more useful. Chopping wood, driving tent stakes, resting conveniently next to your sleeping bag to convince your girlfriend that you can actually fight off a bear—all useful things an axe can do. The Gator Combo is even more useful than that. It has a small saw embedded in the handle so you can limb trees or severe a limb trapped by a fallen boulder. If you’re in charge of the fire an axe is mandatory. And who doesn’t want to be in charge of the fire?

Primus Profile Dual Stove

$139, Primuscamping.com
Portable cook stoves are not just the next best thing to fires. They’re better than fires—at least for cooking. Especially the Profile Dual, which has a grill on one side and a burner on the other. That means chicken cooking on one end and pasta on the other or whatever combination of camp food you can conjure.This gear review originally ran in our Winter 2013 issue.